Larptastic

Did some mitt work, defensive drills and some light sparring Few notes :

* Keep my hands higher, I'm getting hit and it pushes my glove into my eye
* Watch out for a feint, keep hands up
* Work on distance, get closer, especially on hook & uppercut
* Control the range like kendo
* Cut corners and control their movement

Rolled with a couple people. While resting I watched a classmate showing a friend how to do a guillotine/kimura combo from guard, and was able to successfully use it later on when rolling. I was pretty pleased that I was able to pull it off, but I believe there was some luck involved.

Guillotine from Guard
* Pop up and get arm around the back of their neck
- blade of forearm should be on their throat
* Other hand should grab wrist
* Pull back, pulling neck down with pressure on back of head

Kimura from Guard (link)
* Works well if you nab it while they're fighting guillotine
* Grab their wrist with near arm and push it behind their back
* Once in position, lock it in with arm that was going for guillotine
* Push hips out, putting pressure on shoulder with elbow, and pushing their elbow back towards you

Worked on guard sweeps with a new guy, then did some rolling with him. I felt in control the whole time, but still had trouble getting some submissions on him. I think I need to spend more time setting up my triangle, since I have a bad habit of shooting and totally missing it, leaving myself wide open. Also rolled with a friend at the end of class who's been doing this a few years and outweighs me by 50-60lbs. He helped me work some more on my guillotine & kimura from guard, as well as escape from xbody.

Guard Sweep
* Push hands off stomach (from wrists)
* Pop up with arm directly behind
* Reach over and get arm around their far arm to my hip
* Other leg should be outside theirs for leverage
* Pop and roll them into a mount

Variation (if they fight the sweep)
* Drop back down, keeping arm trapped
* Put other hand on their wrist pushing it back
* Lock in with original arm on wrist
* Push hips out, putting pressure on shoulder with elbow, and pushing their elbow back towards you

Escape from XBody
* Push Elbow into their head to get arm under neck
* Push on neck with forarm with UPA, to force them to go up
* Shrimp and put leg into space

Worked some legs, both standing and moving. I need a lot more work on moving and kicking with lead leg, though rear leg seemed pretty natural when moving forward or backward. Sparred with a classmate who's quite a lot bigger and stronger than me but I think I did pretty well. I caught him several times in the head, once in the nose and got him in the belly as well. My tactic of jab-jab-jab-etc seems to work okay to keep some distance from them.

Things I need to work on :
* Distance - a lot of my shots were coming up short, making it a surprise when I actually did connect
* Defense - my constant jabbing is just covering the fact that I can't defend for shit. When they're coming after me I have a lot of trouble covering up or retaliating. I need to spend more time on my crazy monkey since I seem to be turning too much and losing sight of my opponent.

Did a lot of suburi. Was rusty at first, but got back into the groove after a couple runs. Work on kiri-kaeshi and then did some shiai.

Kiri-Kaeshi
* All 10 strikes should be on one breath
* The defender sets the pace

In Shiai, we decided to go up to 5 min rounds instead of 2 like we have been doing. Cardio-wise I did surprisingly well, I was breathing heavy but felt I could keep going. My arms were a totally different story, I was having trouble lifting them by the end. I need lots more practice, I may do some extra over the weekend.

Got to open gym a little late, so spent the first hour shadow boxing and working the bag.

Wrestled with one of the newer (but enthusiastic) guys and had several nice rolls with him. He's learned the value of rolling at 50% so he can learn some technique, rather than going all out and trying to power through things.

While cooling down at the end of class I learned a couple things from watching.

* when escaping a cross body, focus more on the shrimp onto side than shoving the knee in. The space made by shrimping should provide plenty of space for knee
* when passing guard, try placing farthest knee across their thigh and turning hips to slide into side control
* position before submission

Had a short chat with coach, he said I've improved a lot and he thinks I'll be good once I get my subs down. I need to look at it from a glass half full perspective, seeing how far I've came rather than how far I still need to go.

Weird night. After warm-up we went straight into light rolling, then on to wrestling to submission for 5 min rounds for the rest of the night. At the end of class, since nobody needed to leave, coach took the newer folks (most of us) aside and went over some basics, and I drilled them a bit before I left.

Passing Closed Guard
* POSTURE - straight up, sitting back on feet
* Post on lower torso, hands out, elbows in
* Knee in, other knee out to break it open
* Pass depends on what they give you
- be careful with inside leg crossing out, can open up for them to get kimura or take my back

Passing Open Guard
* Head must be free
* Get their leg low, so I can pass over it

Defending Closed Guard
* Control head or
* Control arm (underhook) or
* Control arm (overhook)

Attacking from XBody
* From Kesa Gatame
* Get foot over their head
* Fall back into armbar
- heel should be up against their neck
- other leg doesn't have to be over body, shove foot in right at armpit
- fall back, squeeze legs, arch back

I chatted a bit with the people I rolled with, and the consensus seems to be that I still too stiff and I need to relax. I also need to be more patient when on the bottom.

Did mitt work, some different hand combos, then finished up with some kicks and punch/kick combos. I do alright with the rear leg, but I still have a lot of trouble with my lead kick, especially if I'm trying to use it as a follow up.

I need to figure out somewhere to stash a bag at home so I can practice when I'm not in class.

Got beat up pretty badly, I've got bruises on top of bruises on arms, legs & chest, and a sore neck, arm, foot and knee. Several people have told me that I'm doing very well and someone was surprised that I'd been doing this for less than 4 months. Of course, this hasn't stopped them from submitting me, but I guess I'm making them fight for it more, hence all the physical trauma. I rolled with one of the new guys (170ish) and dominated him, but he's only been there a few weeks so it's no real accomplishment. It does give me a chance to try a top game, which with the weight difference I was having a lot of trouble holding. When I got on top, he would lift me off him with his arms; I need to get better at putting my weight down on top of someone.

We drilled some guard passing defense and the open guard. In open rolling, I learned a few new submissions :

Bicep Compression (ow ow)
* If they've got hands clasped to prevent the armbar
* Hook their arm with elbow
* Grasp bicep with hand
* Squeeze so blade of forearm digs into their bicep

Choke From Side Control
* Get one of their arms across their neck
* Loop arm around their neck on other side
* Grab bicep of other arm and use for leverage
* Blood choked by their own arm + your arm

So I signed up at a fitness gym, and part of the deal is that you get blood work and a physical evaluation as well as assistance with a workout plan.

Had my evaluation and got a copy of my blood work results.

GLUCOSE : 85 [70-105]

LIPID PANEL
TRIGLYCERIDE : 77 [<150]
CHOLESTEROL : 165 [<200]
HDL CHOLESTEROL : [40-59]
LDL CALCULATED : 94 [<100]

Weight : 126lbs
Height : 5'7 1/2"

Situps (on a timer) : did max (75)
Pushups (in a minute) : 35 in 45 seconds and then arms gave out

Cardio : did 5 min on bike with a heart rate around 141 - it listed me with a score of 52(?) and ELITE. I mean, wtf. I know my cardio has improved a bit, but I'd hardly call it that good.

I go back next Tuesday to review all the information and come up with a workout plan.

Did offensive/defensive drills with jab & jab + cross. Then some light/med sparring with jab or jab + cross. Just some random thoughts from the day :

punched in head
* Don't jab for their torso unless you've already blocked their cross, or else that cross will catch you right in the fucking head.

footwork
* Coach said I need to spend time on my footwork, when defending my feet go all over the place, changing up stance and other random spazzing.
* Need to keep working on keeping my stance low

hips
* Hips control the fight, whether you're standing up or on the ground.
-circling right
they have to rotate to square up
-circling left
you have to rotate to square up

Accuracy
My accuracy is getting better. I tried some multiple yokogiri as well as alternating kesagiri and was getting them pretty close to where I wanted them.

Speed
Something to work on. Now that I'm getting better at putting my cuts where I want them, I need to speed it up.

Power
Still having some problems with power. My arms were still aching from my MT class earlier, so that definitely didn't help.

Consistency
Really need to work on doing a string of cuts in a row, particularly alternating yokogiri. I'm able to get the first cut, but seem to flub the second one every time.

Busy night. Ended up starting class late because of an issue with the new locks and lack of keys, so coach said we wouldn't drill a technique but rather just do some light rolling and move straight into wrestling to submission. I ended up learning more than I'm able to keep up with, both from coach and classmates.

working guard + triangle
* use my legs to control their body
* don't let them stand up out of it easily
* bring legs up higher on their back to way them down

xbody escape
* if they're holding tight and not allowing space
* use both hands to push on their top shoulder
* this should give some space to get an arm in at their hip
* use elbow to work arm in at neck
* apply forearm to their throat when upa
* shrimp to side to get leg in

side control choke
* when their arm is crossed across their neck
* pull elbow towards me
* lock it in by getting arm around their arm and neck
* catch bicep on other side of their head
* cinch it by arching back
* movement is very similar to RNC

guard pass defense 1
* if they're attempting to flatten legs and come in behind
* get other leg over their shoulder
* go for triangle

guard pass defense 2
* if they're moving too fast for #1, or if you've lost triangle and they're still passing
* push off & away with top leg
* reorient body to them
* pull back into guard

Rolled a lot more with the new guy that I rolled with the week before. I still was able to submit him multiple times, twice with RNC, but he's already improving and started getting past my guard and into xbody. He didn't know what to do once he got on top of me, so he'd flatten out and just hold on. This sucked because he outweighs me by about 50%, and he was holding on so tight I had a lot of trouble escaping. I took some risks and got mounted once or twice, but was able to sweep him or hook my way out.

We've got 3 folks getting ready for fights, so coach broke us up into 2 groups so he could work them harder while we went through regular class. Started out doing some pushups + mitt drills (jab/cross & cross/uc/cross) both static and moving. He then had us back up against a wall and have our partner throw at us in order to work bobbing/weaving.

footwork
* feet shoulder width apart
* rear leg toe should be about midpoint of other foot
* when moving in for a cross, lead leg goes out at an angle, not directly forward

bob & weave
* watch center of chest
* don't dodge around using back & neck
* movement is from legs
* make sure to keep torso covered with elbows

After class got to watch some of the conditioning of the guys training for fights. He had them doing pushups till failure & beyond, standing still and taking hits to torso & legs, and lying down with someone walking across their stomachs. Looked pretty fun.

Jumped rope for 10 min, then did some shadowboxing and bag work. Finished up with a bit of light sparring.

Kicking 101
* Use hips
* After kick, drop foot, don't hold it up
* Think "whip"
* Hit with shin, not knee or instep

Rolled with a newer classmate who's around my size. Tried to help him out a bit since he was still really stiff and wasted a lot of energy just holding on to me. Had another classmate help me out on preventing some guard passes that I've been having trouble with lately. He also gave me some tips on tightening up my triangle.

Preventing the one-leg pass 1
* Go for triangle!

Preventing one-leg pass 2
* If the triangle is a no-go
* Push with leg they attempt to go under
* Straighten hips
* Recompose guard

Preventing two-leg pass
* Have to stop it early
* Push with legs to prevent stacking
* If they get you stacked, it's too late

Closing the triangle
* If I can't get ankle into the crook of knee
* Grab calf with free hand
* Push them back with far leg while holding the hooked leg
* Once it's into crook of knee grab head and pull down, tighten legs, it's over